Friday, February 16, 2024

Methane emissions from wetlands increase significantly over high latitudes

Berkeley Lab scientists show decadal increases in wetland methane emissions in Arctic and Boreal ecosystems

DOE/LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATORY

IMAGE:
A VIEW OF AN EDDY COVARIANCE TOWER, CAPABLE OF MEASURING THE RELEASE OF GREENHOUSE GASES, LOCATED IN ALASKA.
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CREDIT: SIGRID DENGEL

– By Julie Bobyock

Wetlands are Earth’s largest natural source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is about 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere. A research team from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) analyzed wetland methane emissions data across the entire Boreal-Arctic region and found that these emissions have increased approximately nine percent since 2002.

Livestock and fossil fuel production are well studied for their role in releasing tons of methane per year into the atmosphere. Although more uncertain, quantifying natural wetlands emissions is important to predicting climate change. Scientists expect that wetland methane emissions are rising because temperatures in Boreal and Arctic ecosystems are increasing at about four times the global average rate, but it’s hard to say by how much because monitoring emissions in these vast and often water-logged environments has been so difficult – until now.

“Boreal and Arctic environments are carbon rich and vulnerable to warming,” explains Qing Zhu, a Berkeley Lab research scientist and senior author, along with Berkeley Lab postdoctoral researcher Kunxiaojia Yuan, of a new study that analyzed data collected from several advanced monitoring methods to find the nine percent emissions increase over the past two decades. A paper published in Nature Climate Change this week describes their approach.

“Rising temperatures increase microbial activity and vegetation growth,” Zhu continues, “which are associated with emissions of gasses like methane. By understanding how natural sources of methane are changing, we can more accurately monitor greenhouse gasses that inform scientists about the current and future state of climate change.”

Higher Latitude Wetlands: Quantifying Methane Emissions and How They’ve Changed

Despite the fact that methane stays in the atmosphere for far less time than carbon dioxide – 10 versus 300 years – methane’s molecular structure makes it 30 times more capable of warming the atmosphere than CO2.

Higher temperatures not only enhance microbial activity of methane-releasing microbes found in saturated soils, but they also increase the area that has water-logged soils where these microorganisms thrive as frozen soils thaw and more precipitation falls in the form of rain instead of snow. This is why scientists have expected methane emissions to have increased in these higher-latitude regions, and why more accurately quantifying methane is urgent.

The most common way to measure the release of greenhouse gasses is to trap gasses emitted from soils at a fixed location within a chamber, allowing them to build up over a set period of time. Another method, the more autonomous several-meter-tall eddy covariance towers, continuously measure greenhouse gas exchange between soils, plants, and the atmosphere across large expanses of an ecosystem – and often in hard-to-reach places like wetlands. The Berkeley Lab research team combined data acquired using both methods to analyze over 307 total years of methane emissions data across wetland sites in the Arctic-Boreal region, creating a better picture of factors influencing emissions across hundreds of acres of land and across minutes to decades.

The research team found that from 2002 to 2021, wetlands in these regions released an average of 20 teragrams of methane per year, or as much as the weight of about 55 Empire State buildings. They also found that emissions have increased approximately nine percent since 2002.

Additionally, the researchers considered two “hotspot” areas in the Arctic and Boreal regions, which have significantly higher methane emissions per area compared to surrounding environments. They found that about half of the average annual emissions were coming from these hotspots, which helps to inform and target mitigation efforts and future measurements.

Environmental Factors Affecting Wetland Emissions

The researchers also investigated which environmental factors explained the higher methane emissions, finding two major drivers: temperature and plant productivity.

Higher temperatures increase microbial activity; when temperatures rise – whether it be on average because of climate change, or in some particular years due to climate variability, more methane is released in the process. The team found that temperature was the dominant control on wetland emissions and their variability in the Boreal-Arctic ecosystems. This can lead to climate feedbacks where methane emissions from increased microbial activity increase atmospheric temperatures, leading back to more methane emissions, and so on.

Higher plant productivity increases the amount of carbon in the soil, which fuels methane-producing microbes. The researchers found that when plants were more productive and active, releasing substrates that help microbes to thrive, wetland methane emissions increased.

The team also identified that the year with the highest wetland methane emissions, 2016, was also the warmest year in the high-latitudes since 1950.

Managing Wetland Emissions as a Natural Climate Solution

Because methane has a fairly short lifetime in the atmosphere, it can be reduced and removed relatively quickly,” Zhu explains. “By providing a more accurate understanding of the role wetlands play in the global climate system and how and at what pace their methane emissions have increased, this research can offer a scientific baseline to help understand and address climate change.”

This research is supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science and NASA.

Map from publication that shows specific location and size of wetland methane hotspots in the Arctic and Boreal region.

CREDIT

Berkeley Lab

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to delivering solutions for humankind through research in clean energy, a healthy planet, and discovery science. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 16 Nobel Prizes. Researchers from around the world rely on the Lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.

JOURNAL

Nature Climate Change

DOI

10.1038/s41558-024-01933-3

ARTICLE TITLE

Boreal–Arctic wetland methane emissions modulated by warming and vegetation activity

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Feb-2024

Advanced artificial photosynthesis catalyst uses CO2 more efficiently to create biodegradable plastics

An innovative and more efficient way to produce fumaric acid that not only reduces carbon dioxide emissions, but also reuses waste resources to make biodegradable plastics

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OSAKA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

A schematic diagram of how fumaric acid is produced from carbon dioxide using solar energy — IMAGE:
SCIENTISTS HAVE DEVELOPED A NEW ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY SYSTEM THAT DOUBLES THE EFFICIENCY OF FUMARIC ACID PRODUCTION
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CREDIT: YUTAKA AMAO, OSAKA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

Amid growing global concern over climate change and plastic pollution, researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University are making great strides in the sustainable production of fumaric acid – a component of biodegradable plastics such as polybutylene succinate, which is commonly used for food packaging. The researchers have managed to efficiently produce fumaric acid, which is traditionally derived from petroleum, using renewable resources, carbon dioxide, and biomass-derived compounds.

In a previous study, a research team led by Professor Yutaka Amao of the Research Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at Osaka Metropolitan University demonstrated the synthesis of fumaric acid from bicarbonate and pyruvic acid, a biomass-derived compound, using solar energy. They also succeeded in producing fumaric acid using carbon dioxide obtained directly from the gas phase as a raw material. However, the yield in the production of fumaric acid remained low.

In their latest research, published in Dalton Transactions, the researchers have now developed a new photosensitizer and further advanced an artificial photosynthesis technique that doubles the yield of fumaric acid compared to conventional methods.

“This is an extremely important advancement for the complex bio/photocatalyst system. It is a valuable step forward in our quest to synthesize fumaric acid from renewable energy sources with even higher yields, steering us toward a more sustainable future,” said Professor Amao.

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About OMU
Osaka Metropolitan University is the third largest public university in Japan, formed by a merger between Osaka City University and Osaka Prefecture University in 2022. OMU upholds "Convergence of Knowledge" through 11 undergraduate schools, a college, and 15 graduate schools. For more research news visit https://www.omu.ac.jp/en/ or follow us on Twitter: @OsakaMetUniv_en, or Facebook.

JOURNAL

Dalton Transactions

DOI

10.1039/d3dt03492e

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

An effective visible-light driven fumarate production from gaseous CO2 and pyruvate by the cationic zinc porphyrin-based photocatalytic system with dual biocatalysts

Beyond peak season: Bacteria in the Arctic seabed are active all year round

Despite the pronounced seasonality in their habitat, the bacterial community in Arctic sediments is taxonomically and functionally very stable

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR MARINE MICROBIOLOGY

Fieldwork in Svalbard — IMAGE:
WITH THE MS FARM, THE BREMEN RESEARCHERS SAMPLED THE SEABED AROUND SPITSBERGEN SEVERAL TIMES AND AT DIFFERENT TIMES OF THE YEAR.
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CREDIT: F. ASPETSBERGER/MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR MARINE MICROBIOLOGY

The Arctic is cold and hostile to life, yet it is home to a large number of microorganisms whose activity has a significant impact on life on our planet. For example, bacteria in the seabed play a central role in processing the biomass of dead organisms, thereby transforming the contained carbon into hard-to-degrade substances that can remain stored for a long time.

In addition to the cold, the unusual seasonality is a striking feature of polar habitats – day and night do not alternate every twelve hours, but rather the entire year fluctuates between midnight sun and polar night. This has a massive impact on local primary production, which is dependent on sunlight. In summer, tiny algae thrive in the seawater and also life on land flourishes. In winter, primary production largely comes to a standstill. Little research has been carried out into the extent to which the resulting strong fluctuations in the input of organic matter influence the bacteria in the seabed.

Addressing this knowledge gap, a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, visited the Svalbard archipelago at different times of the year to investigate the local bacterial sediment community. They now present their findings in The ISME Journal.

Enzymes change more than bacteria

Surprisingly, the bacterial community in the seabed does not behave as expected considering the environmental conditions. “Although the input of organic material and its turnover rates fluctuate greatly over the course of the year, the composition of the bacterial community hardly changes at first glance,” reports principal investigator Katrin Knittel. Bacteria in the seabed thus behave very differently to those in the water, where many of them exhibit a pronounced seasonality. “Benthic bacterial communities – i.e., those in the seabed – are very complex,” Knittel adds. “That's what makes them so stable and robust, and it makes it very challenging for us to investigate their dynamics.”

In order to better understand this unexpected behaviour, Knittel and her team from the Max Planck Institute in Bremen have now investigated the so-called functional diversity of the bacteria. How much does the activity of the bacteria in the sea floor change between midnight sun and polar night? To find out, they analysed which genes the bacteria possess to break down algal sugars and to what extent they use them. “While the composition of the bacterial community hardly differs between the seasons, we found that the gene expression of carbohydrate-degrading enzymes changes between winter and spring,” explains first author Sebastian Miksch, who participated in the project as part of his doctoral thesis. In winter, enzymes that break down a-glucans (e.g. glycogen) predominate. The a-glucans are intracellular storage compounds of heterotrophic bacteria, animals and fungi. They are also available throughout the rest of the year, but are then less important. In spring, however, there are more enzymes that break down b-glucans such as the algal component laminarin. Then there are so many b-glucans that some of them may be set aside as a storage for later in the year. “These enzymes reflect which algal components – especially algal sugars – are available to the bacteria in the different seasons,” explains Knittel. “It's not so different to going to the farmers market here: While there are lots of different fresh fruit and vegetables available during the sunny season, at some point during the winter all that's left are the stored potatoes.”

The bacteria in the seabed can hence utilise fresh material that sinks from the water column, particularly in spring and summer, such as the aforementioned laminarin. However, they can also consume material that is already present in the seabed or is produced there. This includes tasty treats such as mucin, but also tough chunks such as chitin. On these, the bacteria nibble all year round. This food source is particularly important in winter, when other input is scarce. Their long-term availability Their long-term availability stabilises the bacterial community in the seabed.

“These findings occur on very small scales, but they are important in a larger context: When the bacteria consume the algal sugars, they release carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide is a very important greenhouse gas,” Knittel notes. Thus, the tiny ocean inhabitants can have an influence on global processes.

Small, lightweight, practical: the Ellrott grab

Overall, the bacterial community in the Arctic seabed is therefore surprisingly uniform throughout the seasons. Despite the strong seasonality, the community is present and active in both seasons. However, it was not only the internal dynamics that made it difficult for Knittel's team to study the bacteria in Spitsbergen's seabed. It is also methodologically challenging. “It is very difficult to obtain undisturbed samples of the seabed and the pore water contained between the sand grains,” explains doctoral student Chyrene Moncada, who is also working on the project. “That's why we developed our own device: the Ellrott grab.” This sampling device, presented in a publication in the journal Limnology and Oceanography: Methods and named after its developer and co-author Andreas Ellrott, makes it possible to take sediment samples from sandy sediments without disturbing them. The grab is moreover so small and lightweight that it is perfect for use on small research vessels. “Andreas is a brilliant engineer and designed and built the grab from scratch, manufacturing many of the components himself in a 3D printer,” says Moncada. “To date, we have already collected over 100 sediment samples from the Wadden Sea and the fjords of Svalbard with the Ellrott grab - and we plan to collect many more!”

The Ellrott Grab

The specially developed Ellrott grab is small and light and can also be easily handled on board small ships, such as the MS Farm. Chyrene Moncada retrieves the device (left and upper right, (© F. Aspetsberger/Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology), developer and name-giver Andreas Ellrott with his instrument (lower right, (© K. Knittel/Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology).
CREDIT
© Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology

JOURNAL

The ISME Journal

DOI

10.1093/ismejo/wrad005

ARTICLE TITLE

Taxonomic and functional stability overrules seasonality in polar benthic microbiomes

WVU close to commercializing microwave technology that can cool down industry’s energy usage

WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY

YuxinWang — IMAGE:
CHEMICAL ENGINEER JOHN HU OPERATES A MICROWAVE REACTOR IN HIS WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY LAB. THE INNOVATIVE REACTOR TECHNOLOGY HIS TEAM IS DEVELOPING COULD ENABLE INDUSTRIAL MANUFACTURERS TO SLASH THEIR ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS AND DRAW ON RENEWABLE SOURCES OF POWER.
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CREDIT: WVU PHOTO/J. PAIGE NESBIT

West Virginia University engineers have secured $3 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding to research a new chemical reactor system that uses microwaves to reduce industrial heat and carbon emissions.

The first-of-its-kind technology would allow industrial facilities to simultaneously produce ethylene and ammonia, two chemicals that contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, within a single microwave reactor. That device uses heat from microwave electromagnetic radiation to carry out chemical reactions.

The carbon-negative process would reduce energy consumption by 85%.

Lead researcher John Hu is the Statler Chair in Engineering for Natural Gas Utilization at the WVU Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, a professor of chemical engineering and director of the WVU Center for Innovation in Gas Research and Utilization. Hu emphasized that, while the study focuses on ethylene and ammonia production, the technology can be broadly applied to many other industrial processes that need heat to work.

Various industries need heat to do everything from removing moisture and creating steam to melting plastics and treating metals. According to the DOE, industrial heat accounts for approximately 9% of U.S. emissions. The heat used in conventional industrial processes is typically produced through carbon-intensive methods like combustion. When that heat transfers through different materials like reactor walls, coils and catalysts, it loses energy in the process, undermining sustainability as well as efficiency.

Hu explained that because the microwave reactor can start up and shut down within minutes, it can draw on intermittent sources of renewable energy for power. A traditional reactor requires steady, reliable energy sources and cannot run on renewables like solar or wind energy.

“Using microwaves allows us to control the heat delivery very precisely, so that we can quickly switch between heating the reactor to produce methane and cooling it to synthesize ammonia,” Hu said. “By using the hydrogen from methane coupling, we remove the need for a hydrogen production step in ammonia synthesis and make the process much more friendly to the environment.”

Also contributing to the research are WVU assistant professors Yuxin Wang and Yuhe Tian, and Srinivas Palanki, professor and chair of the Statler College Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering.

Their work builds on existing WVU patents and research demonstrating microwave reactors operate at significantly lower temperatures than traditional methods for industrial heating and produce fewer undesirable byproducts. The approach enables operation of the reactor in “non-equilibrium mode,” which increases efficiency and improves product yields.

Hu said the technology is “precise, allowing us to vary the power and frequency of the microwave pulses over time, rapidly switching between high and low temperatures. To optimize operations, we’re incorporating machine learning that processes real-time data obtained from measurement tools inside the reactor.”

The reactor design has been validated in the laboratory, and Hu said his goal is a successful demonstration within a real-world industrial environment by the end of the three-year study.

Once the reactor technology is commercialized, job creation will follow, Hu said, especially in regions like West Virginia with “stranded” natural gas resources that currently aren’t feasible for use. Companies will need workers to produce and process ethylene and move it along the supply chain, which is why Hu’s team will consult with local communities, particularly those negatively affected by the coal economy, about how the development of low-carbon ethylene and ammonia industries could benefit them.

The researchers will also start building a qualified local workforce through engagement with K-12 students and teachers and WVU students. WVU undergraduates will collaborate on the research through the University’s Research Apprenticeship Program, Summer Undergraduate Research Experience and Experiential Learning Program. Both undergraduate and graduate students will also participate in research exchanges with Clemson University, which has partnered with WVU on the study, and pursue internships with the National Energy Technology Laboratory and Dow.

“Our research is part of a larger industrial transformation,” Hu said. “By next year, the U.S. will have 3.5 million jobs to fill in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. To spark interest in these lucrative fields even before college, we’ll host experiences for high school students and teachers in our labs and build activities around this research that will be the basis for WVU Engineering Challenge Camps, engaging local high school and middle school students.”

In addition to Clemson, NETL and Dow, participating organizations include the University of South Carolina and West Virginia State University.

Plasma technology for more effective lithium extraction

Applying plasma technology increases efficiency by 3-fold. Confirmation of a novel approach for lithium extraction from brine

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Plasma Lithium Mineral Carnobation Device — IMAGE:
PLASMA LITHIUM MINERAL CARNOBATION DEVICE
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CREDIT: KOREA INSTITUTE OF FUSION ENERGY (KFE)

New research suggesting a improved method for extracting lithium by applying plasma technology has been recently published.

On the 31st of January, the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy(KFE) announced revealed that their researchers have successfully increased the lithium extraction rate by three times compared to pre-existing methods by applying CO2 microwave plasma technology.

The most common method of extracting lithium is mixing sodium carbonate(Na2CO3) to saltwater that contains lithium and extracting lithium carbonate(Li2CO3)-which is a mixture of lithium and carbon dioxide. The downside to this method is that it requires an additional process to separate the lithium carbonate from sodium impurities that blend together during the extraction process.

There exists an alternative method in which carbon dioxide gas is used instead of sodium carbonate. However, the issue with this method is that extraction rates are low in brine where lithium salt-a bond between lithium and chlorine- exists. Research is required to address this issue.

Dr. Ji Hun Kim and Dr. Jong keun Yang of the KFE utilized carbon dioxide microwave plasma technology-which involves ionizing carbon dioxide into a plasma state-to increase the rate of lithium extraction.

Researchers at KFE conducted experiments to compare carbon dioxide plasma lithium extraction and pre-existing methods of lithium extraction utilizing simulated brine. The research showed using plasma technology increased extraction rates by around 3 times.

While direct injections of carbon dioxide gas netted 10.3% lithium extraction rates, in experiments using carbon dioxide plasma the lithium extraction rate reached 27.87%.

This is the first research that demonstrated an increase in lithium extraction rates by applying plasma technology to the lithium extraction process. The paper was published* in DESALINATION (IF 9.9)-an authoritative academic publication in the field of water resources.
*Novel approach for recovering lithium from simulated aqueous solutions using carbon dioxide microwave plasma (December, 2023)

Dr. Yang, who is the first author of the research paper, remarked that “It was possible to confirm the effects of the heat and ions, electrons, radicals etc that are generated when carbon dioxide plasma forms on lithium extraction rates” and continued that “We plan to expand research into plasma lithium extraction processes through additional research into carbon dioxide plasma reactions.”

Researchers are hopeful that lithium extraction processes using plasma can be a novel approach for developing technology that can more efficiently extract lithium from seawater with lower concentrations of lithium.

President Suk Jae Yoo of KFE remarked that “This research shows a new possible use for plasma technology, which has been used extensively in cutting-edge fields such as semiconductors.” Further, President Yoo remarked “Lithium obtained from seawater is a crucial component of fusion energy generation, and we will continue to conduct research into both fusion energy development and fusion energy fuel acquisition.”

(1) Plasma treatment of simulated brine that contains lithium

(2) The white material visible in the photo is the solidified lithium carbonate that formed through the mineral carbonation of simulated brine

(3) Lithium carbonate sediment has formed after plasma treatment

(4) Powdered lithium carbonate after (3) has been filtered

Photo of Dr. J.K. Yang